Here in the present is the past: a 500-year-old ship found buried in mud in a Welsh shipyard, where a nautical archaeologist is reassembling its 2,500 pieces. It was beautifully constructed, of oak, with axes and mallets, rather than saws. "We think of the medieval age as a bunch of peasants. But the people who built this ship were master craftsmen." Exact nail patterns. Complete consistency, mirrored port to starboard. "We haven't found any mistakes," says Toby Jones, curator of the Newport Medieval Ship Project. Built in Spain almost 600 years ago, it carried wine to England.
Read more in The Washington Post or go all in with The World of the Newport Medieval Ship: Trade, Politics and Shipping in the Mid-Fifteenth Century.